# What the hell were our ancestors thinking?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-were-our-ancestors-thinking/569802
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [February 1, 2011, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-were-our-ancestors-thinking/569802 "2011-02-01T18:32:36Z")
**Posts on this page:** 13
**Page:** 4
### Author:  [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2011, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-were-our-ancestors-thinking/569802/61 "2011-02-03T15:06:23Z")
I know this does not address why people migrated to colder regions millennia ago, that seems to have been answered.
I live and work in an area that depends on the snow and cold for pretty much its entire economy. Ski resorts.
Snow is big business here.
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### Author:  [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2011, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-were-our-ancestors-thinking/569802/62 "2011-02-03T16:03:08Z")
Probably similar reasons to why I moved from California to Pittsburgh several years ago. There were resources here (a house, a job for Mr. Neville) that we could get more easily than we could get the same resources in California. The resources might have been different for our Stone Age ancestors, but they probably made similar calculations.
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### Author:  [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)
#### Post date: [February 4, 2011, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-were-our-ancestors-thinking/569802/63 "2011-02-04T02:45:30Z")
> [@Cheez\_Whia](#):
>
> They didn’t want to piss off the [Utes](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ute_people).
[Damn right](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Utes)
Former Ute here.
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### Author:  [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)
#### Post date: [February 4, 2011, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-were-our-ancestors-thinking/569802/64 "2011-02-04T03:00:02Z")
> [@NinetyWt](#):
>
> Here’s another interesting [one](http://www.visualizingeconomics.com/wp-content/uploads/ams-usa-population.png). It says that 1 in 9 Americans lives in California. :eek:
That’s a shocking revelation?
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### Author:  [@NinetyWt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NinetyWt)
#### Post date: [February 4, 2011, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-were-our-ancestors-thinking/569802/65 "2011-02-04T03:48:02Z")
> [@RickJay](#):
>
> That’s a shocking revelation?
Yep. I reckon it snuck up on me.
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### Author:  [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)
#### Post date: [February 4, 2011, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-were-our-ancestors-thinking/569802/66 "2011-02-04T03:58:40Z")
If you didn’t have to go outside and battle the freeway system on a winter’s day, how bad would it be?
What if you had stacked all your firewood, had all your vegetables stored, and had enough livestock to last the winter?
What if you didn’t need to do anything but perhaps clear the snow for the livestock, and provide a path for the weekly trip to church and the general store.
Sounds a lot more relaxing than my life right now!
Our lives are ultimately more complex than our ancestors, who could just huddle inside and take care of their immediate needs.
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### Author:  [@jimmytalibs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jimmytalibs)
#### Post date: [February 4, 2011, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-were-our-ancestors-thinking/569802/67 "2011-02-04T14:47:46Z")
> [@Claverhouse](#):
>
> I’ve always regarded it as a proof of intelligence on the part of our ancestors that they got out of Africa as soon as they could. Apart from the unspeakable heat, there is a lot of sickness in the place — Central Africa, with Central Asia, being the main reservoirs of disease — and back then, not a lot of medical knowledge to counter illness.
> I don’t care for being cold; but I’d be dead in a 90F heatwave…
well if you read African history you will find that the Chief’s of tribes in Africa are the ones who got bribed and had the TOUGH, STRONG Men/women taken out of Africa. But these people did not know NOTHING about what it is like to be in America/Europe. It’s like a typical ghetto african kid who thinks america/europe is like heaven, where you work for an hour and get paid usd 50! So the movement was not someone’s decision.
Talk of heat, well .. believe me when i am in New York in summers i sweat even more than when i am home (in africa) so it actually depends on a country. Sometimes there is snow in South Africa!:eek:
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### Author:  [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)
#### Post date: [February 4, 2011, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-were-our-ancestors-thinking/569802/68 "2011-02-04T15:13:28Z")
> [@Superhal](#):
>
> Here’s a better question: why do people live in africa today?
[Sam Kinnison] Hey, hey, I have an idea! How about you MOVE WHERE THE FOOD IS!!! OH OH OHHHHH![/SK]
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### Author:  [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)
#### Post date: [February 13, 2011, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-were-our-ancestors-thinking/569802/69 "2011-02-13T05:26:40Z")
> [@Hampshire](#):
>
> I’ve wondered the same thing especially with settlers in North America. Why settle areas like the Northeast? Shouldn’t they have been densely packing places like North/South Carolina? You read about the harsh winters settlers had to go through where many died and you think “move south dummy”.
I’ve always thought it odd that, with the whole legendary first winter that the Pilgrims experienced and all those deaths, why they didn’t load up their ships and sail south for another couple hundred miles or so at the first opportunity. I mean, who the hell wants to live in freaking Massachusetts during the winter??
> [@NinetyWt](#):
>
> I was thinking about this the other day, along the lines of “why do people continue to live in places that get so much snow and ice?”. Not only does it seem like a huge hassle to deal with it, I would not want to live somewhere that gets so cold you can die merely from being outdoors.
I still wonder about that, every time I read a post complaining about snow and blizzards. God, I must be weak or something, but I could not live in such a place. Ice on the road? Dying if you get trapped in your car on a rural ditch? Heart attacks while shoveling snow off your sidewalk? No thanks!
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### Author:  [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)
#### Post date: [February 13, 2011, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-were-our-ancestors-thinking/569802/70 "2011-02-13T06:31:12Z")
I imagine at some point a guy in the tropics got tired of hearing " It’s too hot for sex" and talked his buddies into a road trip.
I personally would rather throw another log on the cave fire than deal with oppressive heat. You can only get so naked.
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### Author:  [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)
#### Post date: [February 14, 2011, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-were-our-ancestors-thinking/569802/71 "2011-02-14T03:44:33Z")
> [@Magiver](#):
>
> I imagine at some point a guy in the tropics got tired of hearing " It’s too hot for sex" and talked his buddies into a road trip.
That would explain the [Neanderthal DNA in non-Africans](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/05/100506-science-neanderthals-humans-mated-interbred-dna-gene/).
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### Author:  [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)
#### Post date: [February 14, 2011, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-were-our-ancestors-thinking/569802/72 "2011-02-14T05:57:18Z")
> [@FloatyGimpy](#):
>
> Well yesterday when I was walking to the bus stop and the temperature at the airport was -39, I too wondered what madness inspired someone, anyone to settle here?!
>
> Here being Edmonton.
It’s better than being pogromized in Ukraine?
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### Author:  [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)
#### Post date: [February 14, 2011, 9:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-were-our-ancestors-thinking/569802/73 "2011-02-14T09:20:38Z")
I had a job interview in Edmonton. I didn’t take the job. My descendants won’t be wondering what I was thinking.
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